Soldiers have always carried a significant load when on patrol or in battle. In the recent past the load was carried in large marching packs, smaller day packs and their immediate fighting order on a load carriage or tactical vest. This vest contained all the immediate ammunition, grenades, flashlight, water, first aid and other essential smaller equipment that a soldier is required to have immediately at hand. More recently the modern soldier must also now carry a multitude of electronic equipment such as inter and intra-squad radios, GPS, flashlight, electronic displays, keypads and computer interface devices.
With the advent of the future soldier, this electronic burden has become an even greater contributor of the overall fighting order load and has created a considerable logistic burden with respect to the battery management of all the electronic devices the soldier is carrying. The battery burden can easily be 3-6 different battery types that in conjunction with spares, weigh as much as 4 kg for a 24 hour mission. A significant logistic issue is not only the physical weight of the batteries, but the fact that soldiers are prone to replacing their electronic device batteries whenever they think the ones installed are not sufficiently fresh. As the devices rarely have a battery energy gauge, studies have found soldiers typically throw away up to 70% of the energy they have been carrying. This is extremely expensive power that is thrown away from both the perspective of the soldier who carried it and never used it and the logistic replenishment support cost. In addition soldiers do not know what batteries to take on a mission as different devices use their own type of battery and the use of equipment will change with the tactical scenario. Frequently a soldier may not be re-supplied within the expected time frame.
An option in future soldier vest designs is the use of a central power system using one or more higher capacity central batteries, that power an integrated power and data harness. Power is distributed to various nodes on the garment to supply the electronic devices carried by the soldier with recharge power and power data via quick-connect connectors. Power data transfer is required to provide a Central Power Management (CPM) capability. The various devices are interrogated by the CPM as to their state of charge and are charged according to priority and amount of central power remaining. As central power is lost, the CPM can start removing lower priority devices from the power, saving the power for the high priority devices. The same cable connector system used for power will also provide the ability for communication data exchange. Communication data would include text, voice, still images and video etc.
The use of cables providing power and data connections to a soldiers electronic equipment is a considerable problem as the cables snag, connectors break and both are subject to damage by the environment. It is also very difficult to connect equipment with gloved hands in an expeditious fashion when the equipment is then to be stowed in pockets, during for example an intense tactical situation such as a fire fight.
In addition to the stated device power and data transmission issues, the soldiers in a unit are assigned different roles, are provided with different electronic devices, each of which may be required to be used at different intervals and require being placed in different locations or configurations on the load carriage vest or tactical garment. The reconfiguration problem is compounded by the fact that all the electronic and non electronic devices and equipment require their own specialized pockets as the size and shapes of objects carried is unique to that device. Further each soldier may have different personal preferences or may be assigned a new role which require his equipment to be reconfigured. For example the position of various devices on a vest will change depending on if the soldier shoots from the left or right shoulder. Many existing soldier systems cannot accommodate soldiers that shoot using the left shoulder because the pockets cannot be reconfigured. To meet the challenge of fighting order and load carriage equipment reconfiguration, most militaries have designed and now use load bearing equipment such as a load carriage vest, tactical vest, tactical pants and other garments that allow the pockets to be moved around on the soldier or reconfigured to a very considerable extent.
I am aware of the following prior art and references:
US Patent Documents
7,254,366 B2August 2007Palermo7,408,324 B2August 2008Baarman7,149,552 B2December 2006Lair7,076,206 B2July 2006Elferich6,924,619 B2August 2005Dvorak2006/0224048 A1October 2006Devaul